“Among many similarities to Atzmon’s
statement on separatism, Walcot’s is utterly unaware of
its own conservatism, especially when applied to an American context.
Apart from wishful thinking among Western Europeans that they
have particularly transcended the problems of race and gender
(along with their talents for consuming alcohol in moderation
and their healthy sexualities, unhindered by Puritan sensibilities;
the latter a particularly important fantasy to Atzmon and the
identity he constructs for himself) that so plague the Americas,
it is equally incognizant of higher education in the States, where
even the most Rightwing of Classicists finds himself sharing a
certain amount of kinship with others involved in ‘regional
studies,’ including those of radical Black Americana, due
to their general debasement as unimportant by the culture at large.
While the ancient legacies of patriarchal power in Greece and
Rome continue to be mined by white males for their sustained advantage
in contemporary society (thus it remains Classics and not Ancient
Mediterranean Studies), graduate students and professors in America
often find themselves teaching the simplest of lessons to potential
law and medical students who stand to derive far more benefits
than they themselves from that legacy—accurate knowledge
of minutiae being unnecessary to the exploitation of the Classical
namesake and iconography—standing as a constant reminder
of the feminization of scholastics itself into a ‘pink ghetto.’
Walcot, on the other hand, exists in a world where his field can
often be viewed as at least patriotic, if still trivial; his Cardiff
University making a token effort at including touches of Cymric
at every level.”

Those who tune their televisions to The Hitler Channel—sometimes
referred to as The History Channel—can often learn an interesting
lesson in vocabulary. I discovered this myself during a session
of late night viewing: it was one of those popular montages about
the exploits of our favorite serial killers, where lurid dramatizations
are interspersed with occasional quips by seated experts of various
sorts (whose grave pronouncements on the elemental human condition
too often end up resembling magnetic poetry), all designed to convince
us that we’re being educated in addition to entertained. The
word in question: Ripperologist. While not listed in most dictionaries,
one can surmise that it indicates “one who studies Jack the
Ripper and his victims.” Studies, mind you, as opposed to
someone who merely masturbates to the thought of murdered prostitutes
every night—we’re talking serious scholars here. Guys
who occasionally call Scotland Yard and get put on hold for an hour:
“Press 5 if you don’t know the extension of your party
and would like to speak with an operator. Press 6 if you are a sick
demented fuck who has found a way to vicariously live your twisted
desires through a pointless obsession in a crime that took place
over a century ago. Thank you.”

Sure, The History Channel needs this kind of content to attract
viewers: The motto, “All Hitler, All the Time,” can
only take them so far in the quest for ratings. Indeed, they must
carefully balance their simultaneous investments in getting their
trademark on the boxes of various blood-soaked videogames (typically
budget releases such as The Alamo: Fight for Independence)
with the more sizeable contributions they make in order to push
the banality of their brand name within the hallowed halls of the
Smithsonian. But Ripperologist? That just screams of Trekkie and
even those folks are growing testy these days, demanding something
a bit more respectable. (One must admit that the “Trekker”
alternative just reeks of desperation.) Beyond that, the question
of how The History Channel deals with the authorities they employ
is an interesting one.

Different eras and events require different levels of credibility.
A show on gladiators or the building of the pyramids will have guest
experts whose every appearance is greeted by an extended paragraph
of educational institutions and conferred degrees, their mother’s
maiden name, and exactly how many of their ancestors were filthy
rich and had vassals back in the old country. This information flashes
up on screen after just about every subsequent disembowelment with
a gladius—just in case you missed it the first thirty odd
times around. Still, from a strictly male-perspective, this process
can at times be remarkably democratic, where competing and complementary
masculinities are reigned in for the greater good of patriarchy:
a professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill and a football player like Howie
Long being equally at home for this purpose. Each is a favored recipient
of the legacies of the past, their meaning and power, in a way that
no woman can be.

On the other hand, a Civil War historian is merely a Civil War
historian (writing a book for a vanity press can at times be sufficient)
and there is seldom any point in beating the audience over the head
with this information. There’s no need to advertise their
CVs on the screen more than once: after all, they might as well
be an expert in alien abductions given the credibility—at
least the kind that leaves a distinguished paper trail—they
often bring to the table. Anyone can round up a few friends and
recreate the War of Northern Aggression; building catapults to scale
in one’s back yard is indeed a more esoteric hobby, although
one that many are now finding equally pedestrian given its incessant
inclusion on basic cable. While classism can often explain the substantial
difference in pedigree between Classicists (the most successful
of which tend to start off early in parochial schools) and Civil
War scholars, so-called “military experts” are a breed
apart.

Evidently, the only qualification needed for the job is to wear
a constant subtitle reminding the audience that they are, in fact,
a military expert. Prior service in the armed forces can be a plus
(as is a current subscription to Soldier of Fortune) but
is not truly necessary, though looking tough and having a few scars
can certainly lead to future job opportunities. Looking good is
important, a lesson we all learned during the initial days of the
war in Iraq as we watched every former two-star general march across
the CNN studio to give the same speech on the new and improved Patriot
missile that any fourteen year old videogame player could have delivered
in greater detail. Remember, this is how Wesley Clark became a household
name and Michael Moore’s favorite among the 2004 Democratic
hopefuls: he comes with a real life subtitle. “General,”
like “President,” is an honorific that lasts for a lifetime,
not unlike Papal authority, a reminder of the good old days of patriarchy.

However, it’s these macho men who often fill in the details
for the viewers of such fare as “Tales of the Gun,”
cheap content designed to fill airtime and convince advertisers
that the station owns a viable masculine demographic. These shows
demonstrate that there are simply not enough interesting people
in history—male ones anyway—that we must instead focus
our attention on inanimate objects, preferably on those with a phallic
association, just as ESPN has used fat men playing poker, dueling
with dour sunglasses and manly bluster (the cunning Odysseus to
the Achilles-like athletes of the world), in order to continue to
displace women’s sporting events and keep them off of the
air. Still, it’s hard to blame The History Channel. Even the
United Nations fell for the tough guy persona when they hired the
US nominated Harvey John “Jack” McGeorge as a weapons
inspector under the aegis of Hans Blix. While the Jacko in question
was once a Marine, not only did he not have a shred of training
(academic or military) in searching for or analyzing weapons of
mass destruction, he was also the head of a sadomasochism society,
the Leather Leadership Conference; even Iraqi warlords thought there
was something a trifle odd about the fellow.

Masculinity is itself the ultimate form of credentiality. Given
the crisis imposed by its rendering as problematic by feminist critics,
pseudo-classical constructions such as “Ripperologist”—designed
to draw upon historic legacies of male power—should be expected.
It is not even a new process in American history, although the Mock-Latinate
expressions of pundits on FOX News are fairly stolid (words such
as “bloviate” for “blowing hot air”) compared
to the riotous constructions of the 19th century, with favorites
such as “absquatulate” meaning to depart and squat elsewhere.
Indeed, for his mastery of such language, Ian McShane received an
Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Al Swearengen on HBO’s
gritty Western, Deadwood.

Given the diversity of knowledge today, it seems only natural that
new fields of inquiry are gaining their own identities and trappings,
where self-proclaimed Ripperologists can be viewed as consummate
experts on their own small area of study. However, this process
of fracturing and crystallization has also lowered the bar in the
traditional sense: one of the most prominent Ripperologists achieved
his level of status as a mere undergraduate at the University of
Delaware, given his aptitude with the internet. While the time-honored
“ladder” or “totem pole” schematic of vertically
oriented patriarchy seems to have dissipated for Ripperologists
and UFOlogists alike, what all of these neologisms have in common
is that they are a reflection of males and their interests, interests
which have been deemed important enough to have experts in the first
place—not so for historically female pursuits.

Despite the fact that many public universities and trade schools
have been offering courses on videogames for years, they were always
treated as purely vocational subjects (outside the small number
of sociologists who have conducted an assortment of meaningless
polls in order to win mainstream media attention for themselves);
it took institutions like Princeton that have a larger allotment
of traditional patriarchal authority to introduce the subject as
a purely academic one, treating their hobby with all the kid-gloves
that postmodernism affords. These Ivy League frat boys even termed
their new discipline “Ludology,” a name that should
immediately conjure the political motivations behind the original
“bread and circuses,” something a far cry from the highbrow
artistic aspirations these elite men envision for their pastime.
Though conservatives have sometimes railed against the rise of such
flakey curricula—as if it all hails from those homosexual
bastions in California—their liberal peers have worked to
ensure that when women do get to participate in these reindeer games,
it is only to speak on sex as sexual objects. Prostituted women
are now “Sexologists” and the sex of prostitution is
the sex to which all humans should aspire; shades of Baudelaire’s
manic pronouncements in his Fuses.

As a consequence of this, the bar has actually been raised for
women, who are still forced into the antiquated academic track:
They need a far more impressive résumé and an actual
position at the Smithsonian (something that male corporate interests
such as The History Channel have simply been able to buy their way
into) before they can speak with the same authority on Late-War
Japanese firearms as a man who is simply an avid collector and armchair
historian. While men fled from academia in the late 1990s for lucrative
jobs in Information Technology, they still maintained the ability
to become pundits in all subjects (often as “one book experts”
who have read a single volume on a topic), given the importance
granted to their hobbies and the social networks that they use to
engage in them. Now, as the technology bubble has burst, these same
men are returning to universities in droves. It seems likely enough
that they will carry this ethic back with them, transforming every
field of study into a smattering of television sound bites obsessed
with pop culture. In a strange twist, women will be given the musty
task of taking up the banner of the old guard—carrying on
the thankless role of the stodgy 20th century professional—as
their male peers gallivant about, dilettantes fashioned after the
great men of the 19th.